1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to database systems, and more particularly to a scalable, network-based database system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional database systems now provide Internet interfaces that allow multiple users to access databases through the Internet. Particularly, a first registered user accesses and modifies values in a database through their web browser. A second registered user similarly accesses the database through their browser. This allows the different users to access the database from separate locales through a regular network (e.g., Internet) connection.
An example of a conventional database system implements a web server that interfaces with web clients, and an application server that receives and sequentially processes received database requests by accessing a back end relational database server. There are several problems with this architecture. One is that the sequential processing of database requests allows a single time consuming or problematic database request to delay the processing of subsequent requests that could have been easily handled. Particularly in systems where many different groups of users access many separate databases, the application server becomes a significant processing bottleneck.
Another problem with these systems is that a majority of the database users may commonly reside in a particular location relative to the application server. Inefficiencies arise when numerous remote users access large amounts of data traversing many network segments.
Still another problem with these systems is that it is difficult to increase capacity. Merely adding application servers would not solve the problems of these systems. Indeed, such may create additional problems, as this merely pushes back the bottleneck to a router which must distribute requests across multiple application servers, and may also require a lock server to manage concurrent access.
Thus, there remains a need for a database system that handles database requests more efficiently, removes bottlenecks associated with conventional systems, facilitates system growth without sacrificing database integrity or efficiency, and allocates database servers to efficiently serve their clients.